World Without End (40 page)

"Burying your head in the sand will not make the truth go away."

"Dixon has nothing to do with this."

"You're right. He's an innocent victim."

So casual in the way he said it, it took Conway aback.

"Release Dixon and I'll give you the decryption code," he said.

"So you do know the code."

Conway saw Randy speaking the decryption code in the dream and knew it was true.

"Once I know Dixon is safe, I'll deliver you the code," he said.

"Poor, poor, Stephen. The vultures are circling, and all you want to do is cover your eyes."

Conway had a feeling of sinking in quicksand, of losing ground in the conversation.

"Don't play innocent. You killed Alan Matthews."

"Yes."

That took Conway aback.

"Alan Matthews was a budding pedophile. It was only much later, after I had already gone into business with him, that we found pictures of nude little boys in a lock box inside his condo. That's why he couldn't get it up for the girls or for the guys. Alan's true desires rested in smooth, hairless skin. Money can buy almost anything, Stephen. Especially secrecy."

"So you admit to killing him."

"I wasn't going to finance his prepubescent cravings. And Matthews was greedy. But his greed didn't hold a candle to the people who own your soul."

"That didn't give you the right to kill him."

"And what gave you the right to permanently disfigure Todd Merrill's face?"

"What about Jonathan King? What you did to him was " "I didn't do anything to him, Stephen. I've never even met the man. If you want to know the truth, turn your attention to the animals lurking in your backyard."

"And the others? What happened to them?"

"They're all safe."

"I don't believe you."

"Would you like to talk with them?"

"You know where they are?"

"Of course. They work for me now."

Conway's head echoed with competing voices.

"Let me tell you something about yourself, Stephen. What keeps you awake at night is your desperate need to have the world exist in black and white. Right and wrong, good and bad, all if it neatly labeled and stored away in your safe mental storage jars. Such thinking is admirable given your background. But this sanitized version of the world doesn't exist, Stephen. Life breathes in shades of gray. Holding onto such secular belief structures in your current profession is not only foolish, it's dangerous."

Conway's throat felt dry, his heart tripping inside his chest with anticipation of a possible knowledge he didn't want to accept. For a moment, he couldn't speak.

"I can give you the life you crave, Stephen. I can help fill those missing pockets because once they were missing in me too, Stephen." A pause, then his voice was lower, as if whispering a secret.

"I can show you worlds you couldn't possibly imagine."

"Your friend, Gunther, I know he called 911," Conway said.

"I've listened to the tape and I recognized his voice. Tell me what you saw."

"Prometheus confined all of man's evils inside a box. Pandora opened the box and unleashed all the evils back into the world. So it will be with you. Revelations are at hand, Stephen. Be prepared to have your foundation shaken to its core."

Conway could feel a cold sweat break across his skin.

"One last thing, Stephen. Your mother's among the living. Her first name is Claire," Angel Eyes said and hung up.

Conway tossed the phone onto the bed. Sleep was gone. His mind was too charged up, too busy searching for answers inside an endless loop that he could never seem to shut off. He leaned one arm against the cool window and looked at the city, his old home, swirling with snow and memories, the raw wind outside howling against the building.

Bouchard's dirty. He's setting you up. Stay away from him and his partner, Cole. You can't trust them.

I haven't lied to you, Stephen, and I never will. I despise it.

Revelations are at hand, Stephen. Be prepared to have your foundation shaken to its core.

What if Angel Eyes was telling the truth?

Conway wanted to talk with Pasha. He would have to figure out a way to do it without tipping off… Go ahead and say it, Stephen. Figure out a way to do it without tipping off Raymond or Cole.

Conway's throat ached. He wanted something cold to drink. He opened the bedroom door, about to step out and navigate his way through the semidarkness to the kitchen, when he heard Booker's wife, Camille.

"Dammit, Book, I want to talk about this. Now."

Camille was talking in a hushed but urgent tone. Conway turned and looked down the long hallway. Their bedroom door was cracked open, but the lights were off, the bedroom dark. Booker said something that Conway couldn't hear.

"How the hell do you expect me to sleep?" Camille said, angry.

"Every time I shut my eyes all I can see are my babies our babies being blown apart and you want me to sleep? What's wrong with you?"

"I told you, it's hype," Booker said, louder now.

"Hype? When someone says they're going to shoot your kids, it's not hype, it's a goddamn threat." Camille's voice broke. She choked back tears.

"You're letting these people get to you," Booker said.

"I'll talk with Steve tomorrow."

Conway, a sick feeling in his stomach, stepped out into the hallway so he could better hear the conversation.

Camille said, "And what are we supposed to do? Stay inside the house all day and wait?"

"You can't do that for one day?"

"I want Steve out of here."

"And leave him hanging in the wind? That's what you're asking."

"Baby, I love Steve, but this, this is just too dangerous. Whatever he's mixed up in, we've got nothing to do with it. I'm not going to put our kids' lives on the line I already did that once with John Riley and I'm not " "Camille " "Don't. You weren't there. I came home and there he was passed out on the couch from drugs while Trey and Troy are sitting on the floor screaming because they're hungry and wet." Camille was crying now.

"Why do you do this? Why do you have to put everything you love on the line? And for what? All those times we caught John Riley getting high, we opened our doors and our hearts for him and what does he do?

Keeps getting high on coke, keeps getting shit-faced until he almost gets himself killed and who comes in and cleans up the mess? Who picks up the tab for his detox center and pays for the funeral?"

Booker was quiet.

"This is my family. Our family, Book. I'm not putting them in danger.

This isn't just about you. I have a vote in this too."

Another period of silence followed. All Conway could hear was the beating of his heart.

"You got anything to say?" Camille asked.

"Your brother Michael."

"Don't go there," she replied, defensive.

"I gave him a job with a good salary. I educated him about the business, I even helped pay for his college education." Booker's deep voice was so calm you couldn't tell if he was mad or upset or excited.

He just kept on talking in that cool tone.

"And how did your brother repay me? By skimming money from my company for months and racking up credit card debts in my name to the tune of thirty gees because he's in big with gambling, he's got a major league problem no one knew about."

"Baby " "And when it all hit the fan and your parents were here crying cause they didn't want him to go to jail or to get his legs broken by the dudes coming to collect the guys who threatened to shut off his light permanently, who bailed him out, Camille?"

"That's different. Michael's family. You stick together with family."

"Right. So why you asking me to throw Steve Conway to the wolves?"

Booker's condo was on the corner of Anderson Street in Beacon Hill, the penthouse suite, a sprawling maze of two floors made of hardwood, three fireplaces, a state-of-the-art alarm and surround-sound speaker system, and floor-to-ceiling windows that offered sweeping, panoramic views of downtown Boston. Booker's wife, Camille, was busy cooking egg-white omelets in a contemporary kitchen of black granite the size of a small apartment. Booker sat at the head of the breakfast table, drinking coffee as he stared down at the front page of the Boston Globe. It was just after 6:00 A.M. and the air inside the condo was warm and pleasant with the scents of coffee and toast and eggs, the window behind Booker full of the bright hard blue sky of a picture-perfect November morning.

Conway drank his coffee, his eyes shifting over to the front page of the Globe. AQUARIUM NIGHTMARE was splashed across the front page in bold letters and underneath the title, three fuzzy color photos of an "unknown" man being spit out of the tank. Conway stared at the pictures of himself, his face averted from the camera, and rubbed his palm and fingers over the spiked ends of his freshly cut hair.

"What do you make of that?" Booker asked, his expression and tone, as always, unreadable.

"Pretty wild. What are they saying on the news?"

"You didn't catch it?"

"I was out most of the day."

"Yeah, that beauty parlor stuff takes up a lot of time." Booker grinned, his eyes moving away from the paper to Conway's new haircut and his unshaven face.

"You starting to get that city look. Going out and hitting the clubs.

You planning on sticking around?"

"I figured I'd go with you to work today, see I can figure out where you landed the gelt for such a place like this."

"Only way a brother can do it: hard work."

Camille walked out from behind the island counter and moved into the kitchen carrying two plates stacked with omelets and wheat toast. She was tall for a woman, almost five-ten, her body long and slender under the jeans and red cardigan sweater. Her hair was tied up in a bun, her face free of makeup and still radiating that tough but youthful look of the nineteen-year-old business major from UNH who had fought her way through college and life with a blend of natural intelligence and street smarts. Camille was gentle and loved to laugh, but she also was outspoken and rarely held her feelings back; you always knew where you stood with her at any given moment. Conway had known her since college and knew that right now she was biting down hard on a subject matter that had, for the time being, divided the air between her and her husband.

Conway hated the uneasy silence; it reminded him of foster homes. The eternal stranger with the unknown history, the one always stared at and studied like a zoo specimen. When Camille placed the plate of food in front of him, he said, "Thanks again for letting me stay with you, Camille."

"You're welcome, Steve." But the words were forced and so was the smile. She placed a steaming plate of food down in front of Booker, her body rigid, and walked back into the kitchen where she picked up the orange halves and started making freshly squeezed juice.

"This is quite the pad," Conway said, wanting to take off the edge.

"When am I going to see this place on Cribs'?"

"On what?" Booker said.

"MTV Cribs." Conway looked at the massive living room with its big-screen TV Color security cameras were mounted above the screen.

"That where you and the soldiers kick back and watch Scarface?"

"I get it. Us black folks get our homes featured on MTV Cribs while the old and crusted cracker types get Architectural Digest."

"You tell Steve about the phone call?" Camille asked.

Book didn't look at her.

"I was getting to it," he said.

"A woman called for you yesterday. She asked if you were staying here, Camille said yes, and then the woman said she would call back and hung up."

"She didn't leave a phone number?"

"She said you would know how to get in contact with her. Said she had some good news for you."

Conway nodded and ate a piece of toast. Had to be Pasha. He glanced at his gym bag in the living room. The mikes in his watch, Palm, and cell phone were stuffed deep in his bag, so Cole and Raymond couldn't listen to this conversation.

"Who's the girl?" Booker asked, his eyes even.

"Must be someone from work checking in on me. I left this number."

"And here I was, hoping you had a steady. How long you out here for?"

"A couple of weeks. More if I need it. You got time to show me around the company this morning?"

"Only if you're serious about keeping your ass here."

"It's a possibility," Conway said.

"Book's been asking you for years to come work for him," Camille said.

She had stopped squeezing the oranges. The red-colored fingernails of her right hand danced across the lever of the juicer.

"Why the sudden interest now?" she asked.

"Life is short," Conway said.

"I'd like to explore my options."

"You're right, Steve. Life is very short. It's a very precious thing that should never be taken for granted," Camille said, her eyes locked on her husband the entire time.

Booker's company was located on the twenty-first floor of 100 Summer Street in Downtown Crossing less than a fifteen-minute walk from his Beacon Hill condo. Conway followed Book through the narrow maze of one-way streets shaded by the tall, red brick-faced apartments, condos, and townhouses. The first snowstorm of the season had left a little over two inches of snow. Thirtysomethings were out walking their dogs or strolling their kids bundled in coats and hats and mittens; others were brushing off their cars or on their way to work, well-dressed city professionals in a race to get downtown, everyone's face red, their breaths puffing in the cold, sharp morning air.

Book lumbered with his hands in his pockets and chewed his gum with methodical care. He said nothing, his eyes covered behind his black-lens sunglasses. They crossed the street and walked down the steps, and entered Boston Common. The wind picked up again and rattled the branches of the balding trees.